WESTERN ELECTRIC...

I was home only a few days and my Mom told me that a new AT&T Western Electric Company had just opened about 2 miles from my parents’ home.  She wanted me to apply for a job and to mention that my Dad worked for AT&T for 35 years.  She thought it might help to get me in.  I think my Mom spent a lot of time scanning the want ads to get me a job.  

I applied and was hired that day.  The job wasn’t really great, but it was a job.  I worked on an assembly line rebuilding telephones.  I got pretty good at it and, after a month, I told the foreman that I wanted to be a starter on the line.  There were 4 lines in the plant.  I said I could put out more phones than any of the other lines.  He accepted my challenge.  I got the 3 girls who worked next to me on the line moved up to the front where I was.  After beating all the other lines for the next 3 months, the foreman stopped the line one day and said I would be getting a raise - $0.04 an hour - $1.60 a week.  I told him that after taxes that wouldn’t even buy me a six-pack of beer.  I told him what he could do with his raise and where and I walked out.  

My Mom went ballistic – “Your father worked for AT&T for 35 years and you quit after 3 months!” I told her these were 2 different companies and no one would know.  I had to go back on Monday to sign for my last paycheck.  I punched in before 8 AM and went down to see the foreman.  He said when he told the big bosses what I had said, they actually promoted me to the office!  Go figure! He said to go home and change into a shirt and tie, put on slacks, and shine my shoes – then come back for an interview.   I worked there for 3 years.

I was asked to try out for their softball team.  I was a pretty good fast-pitch pitcher and I could hit the ball a mile – but I couldn’t catch it to save my life and accurate long throws weren’t my strong point either.  I never ate lunch, so every day on my lunch hour, I would practice pitching to a strike zone I spray-painted on the parking lot wall.  I had to buy a new softball almost every week.  Hitting a cement wall everyday beat the tar out of it. 

I also joined a new bowling league they were forming.  A new bowling alley had just opened about half a mile from work.  It was called the “Gay Era.” The manager wanted to keep the bowlers around after league play so on Thursday and Friday nights, he brought in a Rock ‘n Roll band and a portable dance floor.  The band leader offered to teach us the newest craze – Chubby Checker’s Twist.  I had a blast!  I danced until the band quit around midnight.  Anyone who’s ever danced the Twist knows that after half an hour you’re soaked with perspiration.  

I stopped by the local bar where all my high school friends hung out.  It was called “The Spoon.”  I told them about the band and said there were girls all over the place.  It took them about 3 weeks before they decided to check it out.  By this time, I had become pretty well known for The Twist!  The band leader spent extra attention teaching me and a black girl from my office how to perfect the dance.  This girl was very tall and of the best dancers I have ever seen.  The band leader loved us and 2 or 3 times a night, he would ask us to teach the Twist to the crowd.  It was during one of these exhibition dances that I looked up and saw 10 of my friends watching with their mouths hanging open.  It wasn’t quite what they were expecting when they walked in.  One of them came up afterwards and said that almost everyone at “The Spoon” had a nickname – I didn’t until then.  I was crowned “The King of the Gay Era.”   The Gay Era part was soon dropped, but I was known as King for the next 25 years. 

Those dance lessons from the bandleader (not to mention all that practice) paid off a few months later.  One weekend, a bunch of us went up to a place called Eastover in Massachusetts.  It cost $37.50 for the weekend, which covered your room and board and all the food you could eat – including steak and lobster.  Oh the good old days!  I entered a dance contest on Saturday night and I won $25, so the weekend cost me $12.50.  Thanks Chubby Checker and Mr. Bandleader, wherever you are!